Children walk through a damaged part of
downtown Craiter in Aden, Yemen. The area was badly damaged
by airstrikes in 2015 as the Houthi’s were driven out of
the city by coalition forces.

A
plan to withdraw forces from front lines in and around the
key Yemeni port of Hudaydah has been accepted by
pro-Government forces and Houthi rebels, the UN Special
Envoy to the country told the Security Council on Monday,
warning however that war shows “no sign of abating”
elsewhere.

Martin Griffiths said that after a
“long and difficult process” agreeing the details of a
UN-backed plan, which the warring parties signed up to in Sweden
last December to de-escalate fighting around Hudaydah, as
the start of a process to hopefully end the fighting
nationwide, “both parties have now accepted the detailed
redeployment plan for phase one”, and the UN was now
“moving with all speed towards resolving the final
outstanding issues”.

He said the breakthrough would mark
the “first voluntary withdrawals of forces in this long
conflict”, noting that violence had “significantly
reduced” around the Red Sea port city, which is the entry
point for the vast majority of aid and goods for the whole
country, since the fragile ceasefire began.

Mr. Griffiths
told Council members he was committed to helping facilitate
a political solution to end the war: “My primary
responsibility in the next few weeks will be to winnow down
differences between the parties so that when they meet they
can, in all efficiency, be asked to answer precise questions
about the nature of the arrangements to end the war”, he
said.

“I seek the support of this Council for this
approach. I ask you to put your faith in the desperate need
for peace which is the daily prayer of the millions of
Yemenis who still believe in its
prospect.

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